London Borough of Harrow (202300469)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202300469

London Borough of Harrow

13 February 2025

 

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of repairs required in the property’s bathroom and toilet.
  2. We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is the secure tenant of the property, owned by the landlord, which is a local authority. The resident’s son, who lives with her, is her representative in making the complaint. For ease of reference, in this report, we refer to them jointly as “the resident” and use the pronouns “she/her”.
  2. The resident reported that the bathroom sink had come away from the wall in January 2022, which was causing a leak as water dripped behind the sink and into the kitchen below. She said the taps were leaking when turned off. On 1 March 2022 she reported that the toilet, which was in a separate room, had come loose from the floor. She contacted the landlord on several more occasions in 2022. A member of the household was injured in mid-2022 and had to attend hospital after an accident caused by the loose toilet.
  3. The landlord’s contractor inspected the bathroom on 21 December 2022 and identified various repairs including securing the sink, replacing the taps, replacing the toilet and removing and replacing the flooring.
  4. The resident complained formally to the landlord on 9 February 2023, saying it had said it would replace the toilet and renovate the bathroom but had failed to do so. She said this had resulted in injury being caused. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 2 March 2023 it apologised for the delayed repairs and said it had ordered a portable toilet for the family’s use while the works took place. It advised that it would complete the works as soon as possible.
  5. The resident escalated her complaint the same day, saying she had reported these concerns since mid-2021 and the landlord had failed to act. She said she had been living at the property since 2007 and the landlord had never renewed the bathroom so she wanted the works completed without delay.
  6. In the landlord’s stage 2 response of 30 March 2023 it said the floor was rotten and needed replacement. Its contractors believed that a badly fitted showerhead, which it did not supply or fit, was partially responsible for the damage. It advised the resident to remove the showerhead and not use it in future. It said the works were now complete.
  7. The resident referred her complaint to us, advising that the works had not been completed as claimed by the landlord.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. The resident has told the landlord that its failure to repair the toilet resulted in a member of the household suffering an injury. It is beyond our remit to determine whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and the injury caused. Such matters of negligence and liability are better decided by the courts via a personal injury claim. However, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced as a result of any service failure by the landlord.

Bathroom and toilet repairs

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy says it will carry out urgent repairs, such as to an unusable toilet, within 1 to 5 working days of it being reported. It will carry out non-urgent repairs, such as minor plumbing faults, within 1-20 working days.
  2. The resident says she first reported faults with the bathroom sink in the summer of 2021. While we have seen no evidence to verify this claim, we have seen evidence to show she reported faults in the bathroom frequently from January 2022 onwards. While doing so, she repeatedly referred to having raised concerns much earlier and the landlord never disputed these claims. For that reason, we accept that the landlord knew about the problem with the sink in mid-2021, nearly 2 years before its complaint response. It knew about the toilet at some point in 2022 and it repaired both no sooner than late-March 2023.
  3. These failures were clearly in breach of the landlord’s repairs policy and represent an unacceptable level of service which amounts to maladministration. For that reason, in its stage 1 response, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have done more than apologise to remedy these failures. Our guidance on remedies says they must be proportionate to the severity of any maladministration found and take into account any impact on the resident. Landlords must also try to put matters right at the earliest opportunity. This would include, where appropriate, offering financial compensation at stage 1. We say that, in cases where there is maladministration, such as a severe delay with adverse consequences for a resident, a payment of between £100 and £1,000 is generally appropriate.
  4. We encourage landlords to publish their own guidance on remedies to allow their complaint handling staff to make consistent decisions and use their discretion appropriately. The aim is for landlords to provide, where appropriate, the right level of financial compensation at the earliest possible stage. The landlord’s guidance on remedies does not contain guidance of this kind:
    1. It says it will only pay compensation where other remedies are not appropriate or if the Ombudsman orders it to do so.
    2. It makes no reference to discretionary payments for distress, inconvenience or time and trouble.
    3. It limits payments for late attendance to a maximum of £50, even where, as here, it could be over a year late.
  5. Overall, the landlord’s remedies guidance is not in line with our guidance as it does not allow for compensation payments in recognition of failings to be made at the earliest opportunity. As a result, we have recommended that the landlord review this policy, taking into account the findings detailed in this report.
  6. We calculate suitable compensation by weighing various factors including the length of the delay, the extent of the works, and the adverse effects the delay had on the resident. In this case, at the time of the stage 1 response, a compensation payment of £300 to 400 would have been appropriate. The landlord was wrong to offer no compensation given the length of the delay and the impact on the resident and her family.
  7. In its stage 2 response of March 2023, the landlord seemingly retracted its apology from stage 1. Instead, it said someone had installed a showerhead inappropriately which led to leaks and contributed to the destruction of the floor joists below the bathroom and the leaks into the kitchen. It simply said the works were now complete and told the resident not to use the showerhead.
  8. However, the landlord has provided no evidence to show that it had, in fact, completed the works at that time. In fact, the available evidence shows that, while it carried out some works in late-March 2023, it did not complete them until November 2023. The resident wrote to the landlord several times during 2023 advising that works remained outstanding and chasing their completion. As a result, an order is made for the landlord to pay additional compensation, totalling £600 for the failings in its repairs service.
  9. Further, the landlord has provided no evidence that the showerhead did, in fact, contribute to the problem with the rotten floor joists. Instead, the available evidence indicates that the basin which had come away from the wall was causing the problem before the showerhead was installed. Further, the resident wrote to the landlord on 29 September 2023 saying that its contractors had installed the hose. She wrote, “I ask that the rechargeable repair is removed and [the contractor should restore] the attachment to working order it was in before”.
  10. Regardless of the cause of the leak, the resident reported a problem at latest in the summer of 2021 and the landlord did not repair it until 2023, about 2 years later. Therefore, there was clearly maladministration in its handling of the repair and the primary responsibility for any damage lies with the landlord.
  11. For that reason, it was wrong of the landlord to attempt to blame the resident for the damage to the bathroom floor, and to recharge her the cost of the repairs which, on the evidence, it did. As a result, an order is made for the landlord to remove or reimburse these charges as necessary.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy says it will acknowledge complaints within 5 working days and provide a stage 1 response within 10 working days of the acknowledgment. In this case, the landlord took 21 working days to provide a response, and did not acknowledge, or apologise for, this delay within its response. This represents a failure in service.
  2. Section 5 of our Complaint Handling Code sets out a summary of the complaint handling process landlords must follow. Paragraph 5.6 says “landlords must set out their understanding of the complaint and the outcomes the resident is seeking.” Paragraph 5.7 says landlords must be clear about which aspects of the complaint they are responsible for and they must answer every section of the complaint. The landlord failed to do so in this case.
  3. The resident complained that the landlord had told her several times over the previous 3 years that it would replace the toilet but had not done so. She also said it had failed to replace the bathroom since 2007. The complaint responses failed to address these points entirely. The resident also asked the landlord to provide recordings of all telephone calls and records of interactions with its contractor. It did not provide these or explain why it had not done so. This was, again, poor complaint handling.
  4. The complaints policy says the landlord should acknowledge escalation requests within 5 working days and provide a stage 2 response within 20 working days of this acknowledgment. It provided a response within this timeframe. However, the landlord failed again at stage 2 to respond to some of the complaint points. This was a further complaint handling service failure.
  5. We say that awards for complaint handling should generally be lower than those for other failings. For these reasons, we have ordered the landlord to pay a further £150 compensation for its complaint handling errors.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was:
    1. Maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of repairs required in the property’s bathroom.
    2. Service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to provide evidence that it has:
    1. Completed the works in the bathroom and not charged the resident for these works.
    2. Sent a written apology to the resident to apologise for the failures identified in this report.
    3. Paid the resident £750 compensation as follows: 
      1. £600 for its handling of the bathroom and toilet repairs.
      2. £150 for its handling of the formal complaint.
    4. Written to the resident with a further complaint response which deals with the outstanding complaint points.

Recommendation

  1. The landlord is recommended to consider amending its compensation policy to reflect the Ombudsman’s current guidance on remedies more accurately.